She shrugged, blushing. That was exactly what she’d do.
“Which means I’d have left you wandering around in a place like that without protection.” He groaned softly. “Why do you defy him like this, Brightness? You’re just going to make him angry.”
“I think . . . I think he will anger no matter what I or anyone does,” she said. “The sun will shine. The highstorms will blow. And Father will yell. That’s just how life is.” She bit her lip. “The gambling pavilion? I promise that I will be brief.”
“This way,” Jix said. He didn’t walk particularly quickly as he led her, and he frequently glared at darkeyed fairgoers who passed. Jix was lighteyed, but only of the eighth dahn.
“Pavilion” turned out to be too grand a term for the patched and ripped tarp strung up at the edge of the fairgrounds. She’d have found it on her own soon enough. The thick canvas, with sides that hung down a few feet, made it surprisingly dark inside.
Men crowded together in there. The few women that Shallan saw had the fingers cut out of the gloves on their safehands. Scandalous. She found herself blushing as she stopped at the perimeter, looking in at the dark, shifting forms. Men shouted inside with raw voices, any sense of Vorin decorum left out in the sunlight. This was, indeed, not a place for someone like her. She had trouble believing it was a place for anyone.
“How about I go in for you,” Jix said. “Is it a bet you’re wanting to—”
Shallan pushed forward. Ignoring her own panic, her discomfort, she moved into the darkness. Because if she did not, then it meant that none of them were resisting, that nothing would change.
Jix stayed at her side, shoving her some space. She had trouble breathing inside; the air was dank with sweat and curses. Men turned and glanced at her. Bows—even nods—were slow in coming, if they were offered at all. The implication was clear. If she wouldn’t obey social conventions by staying out, they didn’t have to obey them by showing her deference.
“Is there something specific you’re searching for?” Jix asked. “Cards? Guessing games?”
“Axehound fights.”
Jix groaned. “You’re gonna end up stabbed, and I’m gonna end up on a roasting spit. This is crazy. . . .”
She turned, noting a group of men cheering. That sounded promising. She ignored the increasing trembling in her hands, and also tried to ignore a group of drunk men sitting in a ring on the ground, staring at what appeared to be vomit.
The cheering men sat on crude benches with others crowded around. A glimpse between bodies showed two small axehounds. There were no spren. When people crowded about like this, spren were rare, even though the emotions seemed to be very high.
One set of benches was not crowded. Balat sat here, coat unbuttoned, leaning on a post in front of him with arms crossed. His disheveled hair and stooped posture gave him an uncaring look, but his eyes . . . his eyes lusted. He watched the poor animals killing one another, fixated on them with the intensity of a woman reading a powerful novel.
Shallan stepped up to him, Jix remaining a little ways behind. Now that he’d seen Balat, the guard relaxed.
“Balat?” Shallan asked timidly. “Balat!”
He glanced at her, then nearly toppled off his bench. He scrambled up to his feet. “What in the . . . Shallan! Get out of here. What are you doing?” He reached for her.
She cringed down despite herself. He sounded like Father. As he took her by the shoulder, she held up the note from Eylita. The lavender paper, dusted with perfume, seemed to glow.
Balat hesitated. To the side, one axehound bit deeply into the leg of the other. Blood sprayed the ground, deep violet.
“What is it?” Balat asked. “That is the glyphpair of House Tavinar.”
“It’s from Eylita.”
“Eylita? The daughter? Why . . . what . . .”
Shallan broke the seal, opening the letter to read for him. “She wishes to walk with you along the fairgrounds stream. She says she’ll be waiting there, with her handmaid, if you want to come.”
Balat ran a hand through his curling hair. “Eylita? She’s here. Of course she’s here. Everyone is here. You talked to her? Why— But—”
“I know how you’ve looked at her,” Shallan said. “The few times you’ve been near.”
“So you talked to her?” Balat demanded. “Without my permission? You said I’d be interested in something like”—he took the letter—“like this?”
Shallan nodded, wrapping her arms around herself.
Balat looked back toward the fighting axehounds. He bet because it was expected of him, but he didn’t come here for the money—unlike Jushu would.
Balat ran his hand through his hair again, then looked back at the letter. He wasn’t a cruel man. She knew it was a strange thing to think, considering what he sometimes did. Shallan knew the kindness he showed, the strength that hid within him. He hadn’t acquired this fascination with death until Mother had left them. He could come back, stop being like that. He could.
“I need . . .” Balat looked out of the tent. “I need to go! She’ll be waiting for me. I shouldn’t make her wait.” He buttoned up his coat.
Shallan nodded eagerly, following him from the pavilion. Jix trailed along behind, though a couple of men called out to him. He must be known in the pavilion.
Balat stepped out into the sunlight. He seemed a changed man, just like that.
“Balat?” Shallan asked. “I didn’t see Jushu in there with you.”
“He didn’t come to the pavilion.”
“What? I thought—”
“I don’t know where he went,” Balat said. “He met some people right after we arrived.” He looked toward the distant stream that ran down from the heights and through a channel around the fairgrounds. “What do I say to her?”
“How should I know?”
“You’re a woman too.”
“I’m fourteen!” She wouldn’t spend time courting, anyway. Father would choose her a husband. His only daughter was too precious to be wasted on something fickle, like her own powers of decision.
“I guess . . . I guess I’ll just talk to her,” Balat said. He jogged off without another word.
Shallan watched him go, then sat down on a rock and trembled, arms around herself. That place . . . the tent . . . it had been horrible.
She sat there for an extended time, feeling ashamed of her weakness, but also proud. She’d done it. It was small, but she’d done something.
Eventually, she rose and nodded to Jix, letting him lead the way back toward their box. Father should be finished with his meeting by now.
It turned out that he had finished that meeting only to start another. A man she did not know sat next to Father with a cup of chilled water in one hand. Tall, slender, and blue-eyed, he had deep black hair without a hint of impurity and wore clothing the same shade. He glanced at Shallan as she stepped up into the box.
The man started, dropping his cup to the table. He caught it with a swift lunge, keeping it from tipping over, then turned to stare at her with a slack jaw.
It was gone in a second, replaced with an expression of practiced indifference.
“Clumsy fool!” Father said.
The newcomer turned away from Shallan, speaking softly to Father. Shallan’s stepmother stood to the side, with the cooks. Shallan slipped over to her. “Who is that?”
“Nobody of consequence,” Malise said. “He claims to have brought word from your brother, but is of low enough dahn that he can’t even produce a writ of lineage.”
“My brother? Helaran?”
Malise nodded.
Shallan turned back to the newcomer. She caught, with a subtle movement, the man slipping something from his coat pocket and moving it up toward the drinks. A shock coursed through Shallan. She raised a hand. Poison—
The newcomer covertly dumped the pouch’s contents into his own drink, then raised it to his lips, gulping down the powder. What had it been?
Shallan lower
ed her hand. The newcomer stood up a moment later. He didn’t bow to Father as he left. He gave Shallan a smile, then was down the steps and out of the box.
Word from Helaran. What had it been? Shallan timidly moved to the table. “Father?”
Father’s eyes were on the duel in the center of the ring. Two men with swords, no shields, harking back to classical ideals. Their sweeping methods of fighting were said to be an imitation of fighting with a Shardblade.
“Word from Nan Helaran?” Shallan prodded.
“You will not speak his name,” Father said.
“I—”
“You will not speak of that one,” Father said, looking to her, thunder in his expression. “Today I declare him disinherited. Tet Balat is officially now Nan Balat, Wikim becomes Tet, Jushu becomes Asha. I have only three sons.”
She knew better than to push him when he was like this. But how would she discover what the messenger had said? She sank into her chair, shaken again.
“Your brothers avoid me,” Father said, watching the duel. “Not one chooses to dine with their father as would be proper.”
Shallan folded her hands in her lap.
“Jushu is probably drinking somewhere,” Father said. “The Stormfather only knows where Balat has run off to. Wikim refuses to leave the carriage.” He downed the wine in his cup. “Will you speak with him? This has not been a good day. If I went to him, I . . . worry what I would do.”
Shallan rose, then rested a hand on her father’s shoulder. He slumped, leaning forward, one hand around the empty wine flagon. He raised his other hand and patted hers on his shoulder, his eyes distant. He did try. They all did.
Shallan sought out their carriage, which stood parked with a number of others near the western slope of the fairgrounds. Jella trees here rose high, their hardened trunks colored the light brown of crem. The needles sprouted like a thousand tongues of fire from each limb, though the nearest ones pulled in as she approached.
She was surprised to see a mink slinking in the shadows; she’d expected all those in the area to have been trapped by now. The coachmen played cards in a ring nearby; some of them had to stay and watch the carriages, though Shallan had heard Ren speaking of some kind of rotation so that they all got a chance at the fair. In fact, Ren wasn’t there at the moment, though the other coachmen bowed as she passed.
Wikim sat in their carriage. The slender, pale youth was only fifteen months older than Shallan. He shared some resemblance to his twin, but few people mistook them for one another. Jushu looked older, and Wikim was so thin he looked sickly.
Shallan climbed in to sit across from Wikim, setting her satchel on the seat beside her.
“Did Father send you,” Wikim asked, “or did you come on one of your new little missions of mercy?”
“Both?”
Wikim turned away from her, looking out the window toward the trees, away from the fair. “You can’t fix us, Shallan. Jushu will destroy himself. It’s only a matter of time. Balat is becoming Father, step by step. Malise spends one night in two weeping. Father will kill her one of these days, like he did Mother.”
“And you?” Shallan asked. It was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it the moment it came out of her mouth.
“Me? I won’t be around to see any of it. I’ll be dead by then.”
Shallan wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her legs up beneath her on the seat. Brightness Hasheh would have chided her for the unladylike posture.
What did she do? What did she say? He’s right, she thought. I can’t fix this. Helaran could have. I can’t.
They were all slowly unraveling.
“So what was it?” Wikim said. “Out of curiosity, what did you come up with to ‘save’ me? I’m guessing you used the girl on Balat.”
She nodded.
“You were obvious about that,” Wikim said. “With the letters you sent her. Jushu? What of him?”
“I have a list of the day’s duels,” Shallan whispered. “He so wishes he could duel. If I show him the fights, maybe he’ll want to come watch them.”
“You’ll have to find him first,” Wikim said with a snort. “And what about me? You have to know that neither swords nor pretty faces will work for me.”
Feeling a fool, Shallan dug in her satchel and came out with several sheets of paper.
“Drawings?”
“Math problems.”
Wikim frowned and took them from her, absently scratching the side of his face as he looked them over. “I’m no ardent. I’ll not be boxed up and forced to spend my days convincing people to listen to the Almighty—who suspiciously has nothing to say for himself.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t study,” Shallan said. “I gathered those from Father’s books, equations for determining highstorm timing. I translated and simplified the writing to glyphs, so you could read them. I figured you could try to guess when the next ones would come. . . .”
He shuffled through the papers. “You copied and translated it all, even the drawings. Storms, Shallan. How long did this take you?”
She shrugged. It had taken weeks, but she had nothing but time. Days sitting in the gardens, evenings sitting in her room, the occasional visit to the ardents for some peaceful tutoring about the Almighty. It was good to have things to do.
“This is stupid,” Wikim said, lowering the papers. “What do you think you’ll accomplish? I can’t believe you wasted so much time on this.”
Shallan bowed her head and then, blinking tears, scrambled out of the carriage. It felt horrible—not just Wikim’s words, but the way her emotions betrayed her. She couldn’t hold them in.
She hastened away from the carriages, hoping the coachmen wouldn’t see her wiping her eyes with her safehand. She sat down on a stone and tried to compose herself, but failed, tears flowing freely. She turned her head aside as a few parshmen trotted past, running their master’s axehounds. There would be several hunts as part of the festivities.
“Axehound,” a voice said from behind her.
Shallan jumped, safehand to breast, and spun.
He rested up on a tree limb, wearing his black outfit. He moved as she saw him, and the spiky leaves around him retreated in a wave of vanishing red and orange. It was the messenger who had spoken to Father earlier.
“I have wondered,” the messenger said, “if any of you find the term odd. You know what an axe is. But what is a hound?”
“Why does that matter?” Shallan asked.
“Because it is a word,” the messenger replied. “A simple word with a world embedded inside, like a bud waiting to open.” He studied her. “I did not expect to find you here.”
“I . . .” Her instincts told her to back away from this strange man. And yet, he had news of Helaran—news her father would never share. “Where did you expect to find me? At the dueling grounds?”
The man swung around the branch and dropped to the ground.
Shallan stepped backward.
“No need for that,” the man said, settling onto a rock. “You needn’t fear me. I’m terribly ineffective at hurting people. I blame my upbringing.”
“You have news of my brother Helaran.”
The messenger nodded. “He is a very determined young man.”
“Where is he?”
“Doing things he finds very important. I would fault him for it, as I find nothing more frightening than a man trying to do what he has decided is important. Very little in the world has ever gone astray—at least on a grand scale—because a person decided to be frivolous.”
“He is well, though?” she asked.
“Well enough. The message for your father was that he has eyes nearby, and is watching.”
No wonder it had put Father in a bad mood. “Where is he?” Shallan said, timidly stepping forward. “Did he tell you to speak to me?”
“I’m sorry, young one,” the man said, expression softening. “He gave me only that brief message for your father, and that only because I mentione
d I would be traveling this direction.”
“Oh! I assumed he’d sent you here. I mean, that coming to us was your primary purpose.”
“Turns out that it was. Tell me, young one. Do spren speak to you?”
The lights going out, life drained from them.
Twisted symbols the eye should not see.
Her mother’s soul in a box.
“I . . .” she said. “No. Why would a spren speak to me?”
“No voices?” the man said, leaning forward. “Do spheres go dark when you are near?”
“I’m sorry,” Shallan said, “but I should be getting back to my father. He will be missing me.”
“Your father is slowly destroying your family,” the messenger said. “Your brother was right on that count. He was wrong about everything else.”
“Such as?”
“Look.” The man nodded back toward the carriages. She was at the right angle to see into the window of her father’s carriage. She squinted.
Inside, Wikim leaned forward, using a pencil taken from her satchel—which she’d left behind. He scribbled at the mathematical problems she’d left.
He was smiling.
Warmth. That warmth she felt, a deep glow, was like the joy she had known before. Long ago. Before everything had gone wrong. Before Mother.
The messenger whispered. “Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty. They sat atop the world’s highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing.”
“Huh?” She looked to him.
“‘Can beauty be taken from a man?’ the first asked the second.
“‘It was taken from me,’ the second replied. ‘For I cannot remember it.’ This man was blinded in a childhood accident. ‘I pray to the God Beyond each night to restore my sight, so that I may find beauty again.’
“‘Is beauty something one must see, then?’ the first asked.
“‘Of course. That is its nature. How can you appreciate a work of art without seeing it?’
“‘I can hear a work of music,’ the first said.
“‘Very well, you can hear some kinds of beauty—but you cannot know full beauty without sight. You can know only a small portion of beauty.’